Fireflies – Mr. Dog The Bear (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

I received some new music from dreamscape collective Mr. Dog The Bear today and was driven to issue the following warning.

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for kickstarter funding I can tell you I don’t have money, but what I do have is a very particular set of words. Words I have acquired over a very long career. Words that make me a nightmare for musicians like you. If you stop sending me your digital links that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you and I will describe your music in the most pretentious way possible.

Thankfully my longwinded and verbose approach somehow seems appropriate for this music, not that there is anything longwinded or verbose about the music, but sometimes those everyday words just don’t cut it. New release Fireflies may be woven from their usual complex and shifting, intangible and sonorous threads, a blend of post-rock, dream-pop and classical sounds, but this time it comes with a new card to play, vocals!

Up until now the sound of Mr. Dog The Bear has been one of purely instrumental expression but here a fragile and soothing female voice dances just out of earshot, adding waves of vocal mist rather than anything more defined and thereby working as one more layer of instrumentation instead of taking a more traditional lyrical role. As always the end result is perfect and would not feel out of place on a My Bloody Valentine or Moon and Pollution album and that’s about as good as it gets for me.